Chapter 1: Major Yuan Shijiang and Lieutenant Yoshida

  Although the Japanese army's Lieutenant Yoshida was killed by Cheng Ziqiang, according to historical records, the officer who fought against the Japanese at Dongyang Bridge was actually Major Yuan Shijiang, commander of the 17th Army Supplement Regiment. Only in detailed combat examples taught in military schools can one find Cheng Ziqiang's name. To be honest, if it weren't for Yuan Shijiang, Cheng Ziqiang would have been very likely to be shot as a spy in a short time. This statement may be hard to understand now, but during the chaos of war, many innocent people were wrongly killed.

  Yuan Shijiang was not a regular military officer, strictly speaking, he wasn't even a soldier. He was just the son of a wealthy landowner, and this battalion commander position was bought for him by his father with money.

  Yuan Shijiang's father hadn't read many books, but through hard work and perseverance, he had managed to build a family business. He was determined to cultivate a scholar in the family, but Yuan Shijiang just wasn't up to it. Although he had attended middle school for two years and could recognize 17 or 18 of the 26 international phonetic alphabet letters, he just couldn't make it work on the path of reading. Later, someone clever suggested to Old Yuan: "Look at your son, tall and strong, with a square head and a big face, maybe he's got what it takes to be a military general."

  Yuan Lao also lost his mind, so he found an intermediary and spent a lot of money to buy the rank of battalion commander for his son, but unknowingly fell into someone else's trap.

  The 17th Division of the Northeastern Provincial Infantry was a motley crew. Due to its refusal to obey the central government's order for reorganization, it did not receive any military funding from the government. Fortunately, Feng Shui, the commander of the Northeastern Provinces, took pity on them and did not force them to disband, but instead downgraded them to a local unit. The 17th Division had to rely on itself to survive. One way they did this was by establishing "supplementary battalions" and using these as a front to swindle money from wealthy landowners like Yuan Lao Tou and corrupt officials. Want to be an officer? Fine! First, sell them the position of battalion commander or company commander, fully equipped and staffed, but before long, the soldiers would disappear one by one, taking their guns with them, until even the deputy officers and orderlies were gone. At this point, the landowner would receive a notice from the military, stating that on a certain date, they would come to clean up and reorganize, and that the officer was no longer for sale, so please return him along with his men and guns. By then, the people who had bought the positions were left with nothing but empty titles, and there was no way for them to recover their losses. They had no choice but to find a middleman to plead on their behalf, and in the end, they would have to spend another large sum of money to settle the matter. (In reality, such situations did occur. The prototype for Yuan Shijiang's life was the son of a wealthy landowner from Sichuan, who had experienced something similar while serving in the Sichuan Army.)

  Yuan Shijiang was indeed such a lieutenant colonel. However, Yuan Yingzhang's luck was good, and when his troops were reduced by half, the Huaxia Army and the Japanese army had an armed conflict, and the infantry 17th Division's various detachments retreated in disorder. The division commander was caught off guard and hastily ordered that there were still a few extra "supplementary regiments" outside the establishment, and immediately ordered these regiments to rush to the designated location to assemble and await orders.

  But now who isn't a fool, several battalion commanders originally came to spend money on official positions. As soon as they heard that they were going to fight, before their subordinates ran away, they themselves ran first. The only one who really executed the order was this foolish Yuan Shijiang.

  The Japanese officer who died at Dongyang Bridge was Lieutenant Kijita of the 5th Division of Japan. Lieutenant Kijita was born into a samurai family and had good grades in military school, making him a standard professional soldier. If he had any shortcomings, it was that he was a bit stubborn. However, this personality trait is not considered a shortcoming for a junior officer, especially for a Japanese officer.

  During Lieutenant Yoshida's march towards his death, he never thought that he would become the first Japanese military officer to die on the battlefield in China. For a long time afterwards, Lieutenant Yoshida became a laughing stock and byword for foolishness among his colleagues. The task assigned to him at the time was very simple: lead the army forward to Morita Bridge - a large bridge named after a Japanese engineer - and take it over. Note that the word used here is "take over", not "occupy" or "capture", but simply "take over".

  After the bridge was built, the operating rights were always in the hands of Japanese people, and it was named "Morita Bridge" after a Japanese engineer. However, Chinese people found this name awkward and damaging to national dignity - having a strange-sounding bridge suddenly appear within the borders of China made people uncomfortable. At first, only ordinary people privately called the bridge "Dongyang Bridge", but later officials also got involved and officially marked it as "Dongyang Bridge" on maps. However, changing the name did not change the fate that Chinese people had to pay a toll to cross the bridge.

  The Dongyang Bridge was the only bridge within tens of miles that could accommodate motor vehicles, and its strategic importance is self-evident. The toll station on the bridge originally had only two Japanese people and a few Chinese employees. Due to the bridge's strategic importance, at the beginning of the disturbance, a group of so-called Japanese overseas Chinese volunteer teams, armed with weapons, entered the forest and took over the Dongyang Bridge. Therefore, Lieutenant Yoshida's task was simply "takeover".

  The Yoshida detachment was fully equipped and in high spirits. Before departure, they were reinforced by 20 marines who were drawn from the three Japanese warships visiting China at that time.

  On the way to Morita Bridge, many enthusiastic overseas Chinese volunteer troops continuously joined Lieutenant Yoshida's team. Seeing his own team gradually reaching over 200 people in number, Lieutenant Yoshida was very excited, feeling as if he had already been promoted to captain or even lieutenant colonel.

  However, the march was not completely smooth. Less than 20 kilometers outside of Linhai City, Lieutenant Yoshida encountered about 300 Hua Xia troops. The lieutenant immediately followed standard military protocol and ordered his troops to deploy and prepare for battle. However, another big joke suddenly broke out. The overseas Chinese volunteer corps (about 50-60 people) who were advancing with the troops saw the Hua Xia army in front of them and charged forward with a loud shout, launching an attack without any tactical maneuvers. The Hua Xia army was also very cooperative, and as soon as they came under fire, they scattered and fled in all directions. After the battle ended and the casualties were counted, more than 70 Hua Xia soldiers had been killed or wounded, while only one member of the volunteer corps had died, due to friendly fire, and several others had been lightly injured.

  "The Huaxia army is useless. Just charge forward and the battle can be settled." The leader of the Righteous Brave Troop looked at Lieutenant Yoshida with disdain.

  Lieutenant Yoshida's gaze swept across the battlefield (which was more like a slaughterhouse), and he saw several Righteous Army members forcing captured Hua Xia soldiers to kneel in a row on the ground, then shooting them one by one with rifles.

  "Are you going to kill even the prisoners of war?" Lieutenant Yoshida muttered to himself, but didn't say it out loud. As a regular army officer, he had absolute command over the volunteer corps. However, these volunteer corps were not just ordinary civilian organizations; many of them were retired soldiers, some of whom had even served as officers, and their seniority was also a kind of authority.

  Lieutenant Yoshida, being still young and having the honor of a samurai family and some military honor, used the urgency of the mission as an excuse to restrain his subordinates from committing indiscriminate killings, and quickly advanced towards Morita Bridge. At this time, the naval guns and the army's artillery units began to fire in an orderly and planned manner at various strongholds of the Chinese army. Every time a shell flew over their heads and accurately concentrated on distant targets, it would trigger a round of cheers from the advancing troops.

  Several hours later, Lieutenant Yoshida was ambushed by the Hua Xia army at the head of Morita Bridge and died in battle at the age of 23.